A few hours using Vteco will likely get me there.

Takes me back to the early 80s... complete with the frustrations.
?
Its why the S100 crate has 12 different assemblers for Z80 along?
never minding thse that work for 8080/8085 and the TDL
mnemonics for Z80.

Plan B was tried.? My Mintbox Mint 18.3 spat up, the Ubuntu 9.04
had library issues.? Ubnuntu version 12.04, 16.04 under VMware
on my Macbook (2008 32bit intel) had issues with the ASMX code.

Code portability is still an issue nearly 45 years later.



Allison

HINT: its Mint 21.

A list of errors longer than my arm.? (over 100 lines!).
That was a make from the source directory, make install is meaningless to my system as "install"?
gets a "no rule or target , Stop"

My history with getting things like that is either thee explanation misses detail or
its well documented and greater than 4 system versions old or a list of things to
install also out of date.

One of the things is Linux distributions tend to change what's there or even
deprecate stuff while we are not looking.? Best example was an explanation
"This will work on any unix or linux system."? So I fired up Unix V6 on my
pdp11 and also tried it under 2.11BSD as well as Ubuntu 9.04 and it all
failed.? The answer was incorrect and very version specific.

Keeping in mind to assemble the code the time spent on this so far has been a? hard
road block or edit and try to make comparable to assemblers I use 7500 lines of text.

Allison

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I compiled asmx from Herb's site on my Mint 17.3 machine with no problems, and it assembled zmc15 just fine.? What happens when you try to build it on Mint 21?

-Bob

I haven't run Slackware since '98.
I'm running Mint 21 cinnamon...

Meantime in CP/M world on real hardware....?
I'm tried a dozen Z80 assemblers, least that what on the AmproLB+.

The only thing more diverse than assembler formats is disk formats of the day.


Allison

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Hmmm...

I had no issues compiling asmx2.0b5 on my Slackware machine via make, but "gcc *-c -o asmx' did not work and I didn't pursue the error.? Let me try (probably tomorrow) building it on my somewhat ancient Mint machine.

Still not running...

Is there some missing incantation?? This is familiar to me with foreign (not repository)
code that seems to mostly do nothing.

>make install <? yields an error install is invalid parameter...
Trying to build with gcc is also a dud.

It would be really nice if it assembled under CP/M? (myz80 is a cp/m system).


Allison

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Herb Johnson has a modified version of asmx on his website at that assembles zmcv15.

-Bob

I'm trying to assemble ZMCV15....

ASMZ80 V20 can't get it to? run under Linux Mint and its format is?
sufficient different that most of the Z80 assembler I run under the
emulator (MyZ80) all find strange.? The path to reassembling it is
a serious edit, unfun.

Thoughts?

Allison

My next step is to get to the base raw SD initialization and read/write.
The idea is more compact code that has no fat artifacts or code needed
to handle it as fat. to me other than a few keep out areas the 1gb sd is
just a bag of 2,097,152 (0x200000) blocks of 512 bytes.

The idea is to have a super directory (tag and bag) of smaller
CP/M sized (8mb or smaller)? "disks" that can be loaded as needed.
Each would be file system only.? ?The CP/M OS is loaded from
EProm as pseudo boot track.? The?CP/M file systems can be loaded
on the fly as its an offset and DPH/DPB that describe the media.?
SELDISK in the BIOS selects a drive (up to 16) but usual systems
limit that due to buffer space and ALLOC space (256 byte per
8MB using 4K alloc) needs. But the base number of drives can be
altered on the fly and its a minor coding task to make that a loadable
system variable rather than BIOS fixed? as done often.

By doing that it become easy to make a really large device usable.
Seems to work fine for 128 or 256mb CF.

PC comparability for the SD is not used as files needed are simply
transferred via USB-serial to Z80MC.? By treating the SD as a
non removable memory it lightens the code.? Doing that allows for a
monitor, tag and bag OS, BIOS, CP/M image (62K system) plus
extras to fit in 32K eprom.

This is a result of thinking outside of the CP/M alteration guide
and 4 floppies.


Allison

That may be it, I really don't enjoy parsing the FAT structure.? Accessing the device on the
LBA makes more sense to me as its really just a large number of addressable blocks.? I've
done that with IDE/CF for years and its faster.? Also makes it more in common with romdisk.

With the advent of large Eproms romdisk makes having base software available.? The
32K mapping for low address space makes it easy to have the rough equivilent of 8"SSSD
disk (about 240K) for those that remember CP/M 2.2.

Now to wade through the source and make sure I captured the needed code.

NSDOS is a tag and bag DOS.? Its structure is simple.

The base version of that had no scatter gather mechanism so the NS* system had?
a utillity to compact the disk.? ? Another weel know OS that was similar was
DEC RT-11.

Why is it interesting,,,,? Any file can be a directory.


Allison

Planning a new Eprom for the Z80MC..

The basic plan is a tag and bag file system.? Anyone that has used NSdos
that was such a file system.? The plan s to rewrite NSDOS to use anything
but floppy (and their hard sector controller).? SD is the logical device.

So to do this I need to access the card at the sector level likely LBA.

My first pass is a handful of routines needed:
There is no on device file system assumed such as FAT16 or other
partition, or file table, or allocation table...
So the first usable block to max block (end of media!)? need to be known.
The assumption is 1 block is 512 bytes.
SD _RESET
SD_initial? ? initialize where the SD parameters are pulled from the device.
SD_Read_block
SD_write_block

The code needs to be compact so most FAT code contains unneeded functions.

I assume the SD will have wasted space as 1 or 2gb is far larger than needed.
Storage is cheap these days. Most z80 systems loaded with programs and
applications are relatively small.? ?My largest system uses 128mb CF and I
fill about 45mb of it.? Also PC readable is not required.?

Most examples found are not Z80 asm or are full FAT and most examples
are in C.? C on Z80 tends to produce large code.? A pointer or example code
would be helpful.? The ZMCV15 code has it but ts full FAT.
?

Allison

Great!

Looks good!? thanks

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When I go to files section,? I should see "NEW/UPLOAD" button (like I do in COSMAC GROUP).? But I don't see it.

Is might be a permissions thing?

Nope.? I don't see any upload button.? Drag and drop doesn't work.

I'm in Groups IO.? I see my name in top right corner.

let's try files section again.

I uploaded a random file to check and it went OK so files are definitely enabled. Check that you’re signed in maybe?